by Amy Brent
“Come for me, Laurie,” he murmured in my ear, softly, the words catching me off-guard. I closed my eyes. When he spoke to me like that, it felt as though my body was going to give in there and then.
“Ah…” I lifted my hips, trying to push back against him, this craving to feel him deep inside of me suddenly taking me over. He thrust at a steady pace, leaning back to watch my face tense with desire, and then, and then, once more, I found myself helplessly coming, my pussy clenching hard around his cock as the sensation pulsed out over my entire body. I gasped for breath and he let go off my hand, and I touched every part of him that I could, as though this was the last chance I’d ever get to lay hands on him and I wanted to make the most of it.
He held himself inside of me as my pussy milked his cock, and then moments later I felt him come to – it was an odd feeling, one that I was still taking time to get used to, but there was something supremely satisfying about the way that it felt, knowing that I’d pushed him over the edge the same way he had with me. He slowly slid out of me and I lay there on the couch as he sat back up, staring into the fire with his lips slightly parted as though he was trying to give shape to words he couldn’t find right now. He pulled my feet on to his lap and ran his hands over them gently, sending sweet shivers up my spine. I stared at him, a smile on my face, as the flames danced over his body. I couldn’t believe how good it was already.
“You should get to bed,” he remarked after a while, and I let my head fall back against the couch. I wasn’t ready to go to my own bed yet – I was enjoying hanging out in the afterglow of this way too much, and I didn’t want to have to leave him.
“I don’t want to,” I murmured, reaching out to touch his face. He was still holding my feet, protective.
“Come on,” He got to his feet, offering me a hand. “Let’s get you some sleep. I need you well-rested.”
I took his hand, and he pulled me upright; I felt a little headrush but I wasn’t sure if it was from getting up or from being so close to him once more.
“Well-rested?” I asked, and he grinned at me.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he replied, and led me out of the living room. It took me a moment to realize that we weren’t headed to my bedroom.
“You want me to sleep…?” I began, and quickly closed my mouth. I didn’t want him to notice that he was taking me to his bed instead of mine, just in case he was doing this on instinct.
“What?” He asked, as he opened the door and I followed him inside.
“Nothing,” I shook my head, and he headed over to the bathroom as I took a seat on the edge of the bed. I grinned, widely, feeling like I was getting away with something. He wanted me to sleep with him tonight. Sharing his bed after we’d had sex that hot? That was more than just the contract, I was sure of it.
By the time he came back from the bathroom, I had stripped down and curled up beneath the covers; I listened as he slipped into bed next to me, and I could feel the warmth of his naked flesh so close to me that I wanted to reach out and touch it. But I was sure that if I let myself come into contact with him, he might realize that this was too far. I didn’t want to break the spell, didn’t want to do anything that would unsettle this moment.
But then, to my surprise, I felt his hands on my back as he pulled me towards him, pressing me tight against his chest. I closed my eyes and smiled, not saying a word, not needing to – everything that I wanted to convey was in the way he was touching me right now, was in the feel of his heartbeat against my back. He let out a long breath and it tickled my neck, and I squirmed against him, loving the feeling of his strong body against mine.
“Stop that,” he murmured softly. “Or I might need to tire you out some more.”
I stilled myself, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to continue and tempt him into doing more. But I was so tired, and the only thing I needed was the sensation of him so close to me, his body solid and comforting against me. It had been a long time since I’d felt as safe as I did at that moment – maybe it was just the knowledge that what we had just shared hadn’t ended when he had pulled out of me. Like me, he seemed to understand that there was more to this than those contracts might indicate. I snuggled into the pillow, and he let out a little snuffle behind me as he got comfortable. I grinned as I felt the tiredness wash over me, and tried to remember a time when I’d last felt as purely happy as this. And I couldn’t think of one time in my life when things had been this damn good.
Chapter Eight
Three weeks with her in this place, and I already felt as though I was starting to fall for her.
I had promised myself that it wouldn’t go like this. I had promised myself, even as we started sleeping together and having the hottest damn sex I’d ever had in my life, that it wouldn’t be that way, that I would be able to keep her at arm’s length and somehow mix the physical and the emotional and not let it drive me a little crazy. But here I was, three weeks in, and already finding myself staring at her across the room when I knew she wasn’t looking like I was some kind of lovestruck teenager.
In my defence, everything that we shared together was a lot to handle without falling head-over-heels for her. The sex was something else – yeah, I knew I hadn’t had it in a long time, but there was still something about being with her that seemed to overtake everything that I’d experienced before. Her innocence and inexperience mixed with her enthusiasm and rampant and naked desire for me were a mix I’d never known before now that I’d needed, but every time we got into bed (or on the kitchen counter, or on the couch, or in the shower) I found myself falling a little bit harder for her. Sex was a heady thing, I was remembering, and it was hard to have a lot of it with someone and do it well and keep an emotional distance.
But it was more than that, too. If it was just sex I could have told myself that and committed to the hard task of extracting myself from that once we had conceived successfully. It was the way that she looked at me sometimes, like she couldn’t believe we were together. It was the way she murmured slightly in her sleep, stuff that I could never make out. It was the way she would curl her feet up under herself and just stare off into the fire, that small smile on her face, as though she was thinking about something she couldn’t quite put into words. She was smart, she made me laugh, and the chemistry we shared together was something I never thought I would find with any one person. It was a lethal combination, and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen it coming. Even back at that diner, the first place I’d met her, I could trace it back to the moment that our hands had met and it felt as though my entire world had shifted out of joint a few inches. I thought that was just because I was nervous, but now I could see that it was some part of me desperately attempting to warn me that I was on the brink of giving in and letting my feelings for her get in the way of what I was trying to do here.
I was chopping up wood for the fire when it happened. I hadn’t expected it; I mean, I knew what we’d been trying to do all this time, but I guess it didn’t really click until she walked out of the cabin, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to keep something in.
“Hey,” she called out to me, pulling me out of my head for a moment. I looked up, leaning on my axe, and smiling at her.
“Hey,” I called back, as she picked her way across the cold earth towards me. She was biting her lip, and I was curious to see what she was doing out here. She didn’t normally venture out of the cabin unless she had to, preferring to hide out inside and read whenever she got the chance.
“So,” She began, unable to keep the smile off her face. “I was…I realized that my period was late, a couple days ago. And you’d left those pregnancy tests in my bathroom…”
My heart stopped as I realized what she was saying. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening.
“Are you…?” I waved my hand at her stomach, and she took a deep breath and nodded.
“I’m pregnant,” she replied, her voice cracking slightly as though she couldn’t be
lieve it herself. The words seemed to hang in the air between us, the whole world holding it’s breath to see how I would react to this. My jaw dropped.
“Already?” I put the axe down and stepped towards her, and in that moment I felt this swell of connection to her that I had never felt the likes of before in my life. Nothing even came close to this. I wanted to pull her into my arms, to kiss her and tell that I-
“I checked twice,” She shook her head, disbelief still laced through every word. “And yeah, there’s no doubt. I mean, it’s early days yet, I don’t want to get too invested, but….yeah. I’m pregnant. We’re pregnant.”
“Holy shit,” I raked a hand through my hair, and looked down at her; she looked so small and dainty standing there in front of me, and it was hard to believe that a tiny little creature like her could carry my child for me. But it was the truth; here she was, telling me that she was pregnant.
“I can’t believe it,” I moved towards her, pulling her into my arms and burying my face in her hair. She had such a comforting smell to her, like fresh-baked pastries, and I was already finding myself craving it when I woke up in the morning.
“Well, it is what you hired me for,” she reminded me, voice slightly muffled as I held her close – and that reminder of the truth, the reminder of what had happened to bring us together, was like a bucket of cold water over my head. She wrapped her arms around me but I pulled away slightly, reluctantly.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, frowning, as she read the discomfort on my voice. “You aren’t happy about this? Have you changed you mind?”
“No, no,” I assured her quickly. “This is perfect. It’s exactly what I wanted.”
I looked down at her and felt myself soften once more. I couldn’t say no to that face, to those lips, to the eyes that seemed to call to something deep and elemental inside of me. I leaned down and kissed her, and then scooped her up into my arms, forgetting everything I’d just been thinking about how I should know to hold back and stop now that I had what I wanted.
She laid her hand on my chest again, as she often had before, as though she was getting used to the feel of my heartbeat, noting the way it raced as she planted a row of soft kisses up my neck. I was already growing hard, my pulse racing as I kicked the front door open and planted her on the kitchen table. She pulled me close to her at once, and I instantly felt this craving kick into action, rushing through me like I might die if I didn’t fulfil it at once. I ran my hands all over her but I wanted more – I wanted to taste her, to cover her in kisses, to enjoy every part of her. I felt so close to her in that moment, my body and my mind reacting to what she had just told me. It was impossible to deny the connection now, the intimacy that seemed to pulse in the air right now. She was pregnant. My child. My baby. It was finally happening, and it was happening with the only person in the world I wanted it to happen with.
“Oh my God, Cormac,” She gasped as I kissed down her chin and over her neck, pushing down the straps of the top she had on. I wasn’t sure whether she was reacting to my touch or if the enormity of everything that was happening was just hitting her, but either way, I knew how she was feeling. She pushed her hand up and under my shirt, running her hand across my stomach, the skin on skin almost more than I could handle.
I kissed over her shoulder, pulling her arm out straight, moving my mouth hungrily across her skin. I came to her hand, coaxing her thumb into my mouth and letting my teeth drag across the pad to make her squirm in front of me. I planted a kiss right on that sensitive spot on the middle of her palm, and then moved back up, doing the same on the other side. Every kiss got her breath coming harder, and I ran my hand over her stomach, struggling to believe that she was really carrying my baby. I could hardly believe it. It was somehow sexy to me, knowing that I’m impregnated her, knowing that she still wanted me even after we’d conceived. And I wanted her. I kissed down her chest, pulling her shirt down, as she wrapped her legs around me and began to grind mercilessly against my already-hard cock. I could taste her, the sweetness of her skin filling my mouth and spreading over my tongue. I wanted her, all of her, didn’t care what the contract said, didn’t care what I’d told myself – this woman was the one that I wanted, more than I could ever put into words, more than I could control…
I lifted my head and looked into her eyes, and she leaned forward to kiss me again. And suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I needed to stop. This was too far. This was going further than I had ever agreed. I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to fall for her, that I wasn’t going to let myself get hurt again. But here I was, fooling around with her after the contract had declared it pointless.
She leaned forward, grinning, like she thought this was just another one of my little games, but I moved out of the way again. The smile slowly began to fade as I took my hands off of her, reluctantly. Every part of my physical body was yelling at me to keep going, demanding that I fuck her on this table and release the tension and desire and desperation that seemed to be taking control, but I took a long, deep breath and forced myself to calm down. I had been indulging myself with her, telling myself that it was in aid of having the baby I wanted so much, but if I kept going after this then I would be lying. I would have broken the one rule I had set for myself when I had brought her up here. Looking down at her, I knew it was going to be hellish having her around and knowing that I couldn’t just give in to my desire for her, but I didn’t want to push my luck any more than I already had.
“What’s wrong?” She asked as I moved away from her. I shook my head, searching for the words to tell her everything that was going through my head, and coming up with nothing.
“We shouldn’t,” I looked away from her, knowing that if those pleading eyes were looking into mine then I wouldn’t be able to stick this out. “I’m sorry. I got caught up. Bad habit, I guess.”
“Bad habit?” She repeated, her mouth turning down into an almost comical frown. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we shouldn’t do this now that you’re pregnant,” I replied, forcing myself to keep speaking, knowing that I could keep my hands off her if I could keep reminding myself why I was doing this.
“What?” She looked hurt, and I wanted to tell her that this wasn’t about her, that I really did want her and to keep this going, but that I knew we just couldn’t if I didn’t want to fall for her, harder than I had ever intended to.
“I should go finish what I was doing,” I turned to head out the door, leaving her there, still planted on the table, her strap still pushed down her shoulder in this tempting way that made it so fucking hard to leave. I could see the reflection of her in the glass of the door as I made my way back outside to chop wood, and the shock and hurt in her face was hard to bear. I paused for a moment at the door, and seriously thought about turning back and going to her. I wished I had the words to tell her how I felt, how badly I still wanted to be with her in every way possible, but that would involve telling her everything that had happened with Jeb and Julia and the business and I wasn’t sure I could even go over that all again in my own head, let alone letting someone else in on that fucking mess.
I stepped out the door and closed it tight behind me, and it felt symbolic, like I was shutting the door on what could have been between us. And, as much as I knew that pushing things any further as long as she was still pregnant would be dangerous, I couldn’t fight the fact that my feelings for her were already turning into something deeper. And now that she was pregnant? I wasn’t sure how I was meant to keep them in check.
Chapter Nine
I lay there on the couch, running my hands over my stomach over and over again. There was no bump yet – no, it was way too early for that yet – but I was sure I could feel something. But maybe that was just the confusion over what had happened between Cormac and I the day that I had told him about the baby.
He had rejected me, but he had been the one to come on to me in the first place. When I had come out there, to tell him what I
had just found out, I had convinced myself that this would be the end of our physical relationship. Not that I wanted it to be, just that I figured I would have to accept that a guy who liked to stay in control as much as him would want to abide by the rules of the contract we’d agreed upon what felt like ages ago.
But he had been the one to put the moves on me, and there was no way that I was going to turn him down. Finding out that I was pregnant with his baby had been one of the most profound experiences I’d ever had in my life; in fact, I hadn’t told him as soon as I’d found out, waiting until the next morning to let the news somewhat sink into my head. I remembered vividly sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at the test, wondering what in the hell was going on inside my body. It had happened so soon, so much faster than I’d expected. But I had known, almost before I’d ever taken the test, what those strange feelings churning in my gut meant. When my period was late, I could hardly believe it; I had barely been here a month. The two of us were barely getting started with actually, truly knowing each other, and here we were on the brink of starting a family together.
I knew that the rules of the contract meant that I handed this baby over to him as soon as it was born, that I wasn’t technically owed any contact with the child once it was out of my body, but for the next nine months at least, I had this connection with him that ran deeper than my connection with anyone else. And I knew from the way that he looked at me that he felt the same way. It was impossible to express, the profundity of knowing what we shared. The pregnancy was hard to get my head around, but I knew that I was glad I was doing it with him. He made me feel so safe, so cared-for, in a way that I had never truly experience in my life.
